Democrats abandoned “Cap-and-Trade” back in July. There was no support for the bill, and public enthusiasm for Congress was around 11%. Although perhaps “abandoned” is too strong a word. They just put it on the shelf temporarily and, as they do so often, gave it a new name, and will bring it back in the Lame Duck session as a nationwide renewables mandate, which will require utilities to source certain amounts of their electricity from “renewable” sources. That sound innocuous enough, doesn’t it?

According to a Financial Times/Harris survey this month, most Americans favor an expansion of renewable energy. But that support is very weak. When asked if they would be willing to pay as little as 5% more for electricity, only 32% of Americans said yes. A full 57% of Americans said they would be opposed to paying for more than a 5% increase in electricity prices for renewable energy.

The prices for alternative energy are, at a minimum, almost double the cost of electric power from a coal-fired plant. And since so-called renewable sources require 24/7 backup from a regular power source (i.e, a coal-fired power plant) you can probably add the $78.10 cost for conventional coal power to the cost of the renewable. (Perhaps I misunderstand this, but when you turn a light switch on, you expect the lights to go on — you don’t want to wait for the wind to start to blow again).

Administration ideas of what is renewable power don’t seem to include nuclear plants nor hydroelectric plants. It’s all about wind and solar — which are not really sources of energy.

A Heritage Foundation analysis of a requirement of 22.5% alternative energy found that 1) household electricity prices would jump 35%; 2) industry prices would rise by 60%; 3) national income (GDP) would be cut by $5.2 trillion between 2012 and 2035; and 4) a renewable electricity standard would kill more than one million jobs.

We have had decades of subsides for renewable energy, yet if you eliminate hydropower, wind and solar only account for a tiny 3% of our energy, and that doesn’t include the necessity for keeping a conventional backup. Think of a renewable mandate as something that massively raises costs but provides no economic benefit whatsoever.

If Congress does not pass a Renewable Energy Standard, we are not out of the woods. The EPA is ready to slap a tax on all forms of energy in the interest of protecting us from the debilitating effects on our health of the carbon dioxide (CO2) that we exhale.

You would think that the Democrats would want to create jobs and grow the economy; to make us all more prosperous. People prefer to be prosperous. That would seem to be the road to electoral success. But here they are, determinedly making poor people poorer, killing jobs at every opportunity, destroying business opportunity, killing free trade and damaging our relations with our allies, and now they want to turn the electricity off at the same time they want to get us all into electric cars. Please explain this to me. I don’t get it.

Last Wednesday the League of Women Voters sponsored a debate between Democrat incumbent Melissa Bean, GOP challenger Joe Walsh and Green Party candidate Bill Scheurer for Illinois’ 8th congressional district. A member of the audience asked if they were going to say the Pledge of Allegiance first. Moderator Kathy Tate-Bradish said no.

She, afterward, went to the press and said it was all the fault of the “unruly Republicans.” For the full story go here.

Contrary to this corrupt judge’s ruling (a judge appointed by Lisa’s daddy), public officials do NOT give up their right to privacy. This is the reason we still don’t have Barack Obama’s birth certificate, college transcripts, or full medical records. (birds of a feather: Obama only won his senate seat by getting corrupt Chicago judges to unseal the divorce records of his opponents).

“I hold that although Mr. Miller has a legitimate expectation of privacy in those documents, Mr. Miller’s right to privacy is indeed outweighed by the public’s significant interest in the background of a public figure who is running for the U.S. Senate,” the judge said. He noted that U.S. senator is among the highest elected offices in the nation.

Burbank ordered that nothing actually will be released until Tuesday afternoon, however, to allow for the ruling to be appealed to the Alaska Supreme Court.

The judge said that about 30 of the documents being sought would not be released. Twice that number would be redacted. The case was brought by a group of Alaska news media organizations, which have been trying since summer to see borough documents concerning Miller’s employment as a part-time borough attorney.

Yet more proof that Lisa Murky is exactly the type of corrupt, sleazy, power-hungry scoundrel that Americans need to RID congress of. If you are an Alaska voter, PLEASE clean up your state and do whatever you have to do to vote for Joe Miller. I don’t care if you have to hike 50 miles uphill in the snow to get to the polls — VOTE! This sleazeball must be kicked out of congress!

And no matter where you live, you can contribute to and volunteer for the Joe Miller campaign here. (An added bonus for contributing to the Miller campaign, is that Alaska is a small market, and your dollars will go much further than they would in most of the lower 48, so every dollar really does count.)

If by chance you give the maximum donation to Miller’s campaign, other groups you can also contribute to that are working to elect Joe Miller are the Club for Growth and the Senate Conservatives Fund.

Bill Whittle has made a series of videos about what Conservatives believe. First he explained why we believe in small government, and then he took on the problem of elitism. He has a special talent for taking on the very basic questions. Always worthwhile.